"We will have hospitals overwhelmed and not only in terms of ICU beds and hospitals -- and that's bad -- but exhausted hospital staff and hospital staff that's getting ill themselves," Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, told CNN Friday night. "So, we won't have enough manpower, human power, to manage all of this."
Only five states saw a decrease of at least 10% in average new daily cases over the past week. And the US set a record for the highest single day of new cases for the second time this week with 66,627 cases on Friday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The resurgence has many local leaders returning to actions taken in March and April to slow the spread of the virus.
At least 26 states have paused or rolled back their plans to reopen.
Atlanta's mayor and Georgia's governor are at odds over the mayor's order Friday to send her city back to Phase 1 of its reopening plan. Citing an "alarming" increase in cases, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said residents under this phase should leave the house only for essential trips, and restaurants and retailers must offer only to-go or curbside pickup service.
Gov. Brian Kemp's office said the mayor's plan is not "legally enforceable" because Kemp signed an order prohibiting local action from being more prohibitive than the state's requirements. To free the capacity for more testing and hospital care in a surge, Kemp reactivated a makeshift hospital Friday at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott renewed a disaster declaration first issued March 13 to mitigate spread in his state, while Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer requested the extension of National Guard use through December for humanitarian missions such as running mobile screenings, distributing food and medical supplies and disinfecting public spaces.
"All people who study these viruses think that the summer is the quiet time. Think about that. This is the quiet time for coronavirus," Dr. William Haseltine, a former professor at Harvard Medical School, told CNN on Friday. "If this is the quiet time, I hate to think what winter is going to be like this year."
Disney World reopens as Florida cases and hospitalizations soar
Even as Florida flirts with records for daily cases and soaring hospitalizations, one of its biggest tourist attractions reopened Saturday.
Disney World opened its Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom Park near Orlando to the general public for the first time since shutting down over the pandemic. The reopenings come with restrictions and adjustments, including capacity limits, requiring pre-registration, and temperature screenings.
Florida recorded 11,433 new Covid-19 cases Thursday -- its second-highest count for one day -- the state said Friday.
And hospitalizations are rising.
A total of 7,063 people are hospitalized in Florida with Covid-19 as the primary diagnosis the state's Agency for Health Care Administration said Saturd
